The present invention relates to wireless communication networks, and more particularly to a protocol for establishing an ad-hoc wireless fidelity network.
Wireless networks are well known and are being increasingly used to exchange data. One known Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) standard is the IEEE 802.11 standard, which defines the communication modes and the associated configuration protocols for an infrastructure WLAN.
There are three logical components in an infrastructure wireless network, namely a registrar, an access point (AP), and an enrollee. The terms authenticator and devices seeking authentication are used herein as alternative descriptors of the terms registrar and enrollee. Referring to FIG. 1A, to establish a wireless communications link with legacy AP 10, client 12 first seeks to acquire network credentials from external registrar 14. Subsequently, client 12 establishes a link to legacy AP 10 using the network credentials that client 12 has acquired from external registrar 14.
Referring to FIG. 1B, AP 20 is shown as having an embedded registrar. To establish a communications link with AP 20, client 22 first seeks to acquire network credentials from AP 20's embedded registrar over an 802.11 infrastructure network using an extended authentication protocol (EAP). Subsequently, using the acquired network credentials, client 22 wirelessly connects to AP 20.
Referring to FIG. 1C, to establish a communications link with AP 30, client 32 first seeks to acquire network credentials using EAP via AP 30. AP 30 relays the client 32's EAP message to registrar 34 using a Universal Plug and Play (UpnP) protocol defined by the UPnP™ Forum. Next, using the acquired network credentials supplied by registrar 34, client 32 establishes a communications link with AP 30.
Generally, ad-hoc networks are more suitable for portable electronic devices than infrastructure networks. However, present methods for configuring a network including multiple devices present ease of use issues that need to be addressed. For example, as portable electronic devices with wireless network capabilities become more pervasive, it would be desirable to enable three or more of such devices to form an ad-hoc, peer-to-peer, mesh, or other wireless network to exchange data without using an access point.